The Bond
by A.O.T.I.F
Summary: A chance attack in the summer before Harry's 5th year leaves him incapacitated and hospitalized. Six months have passed, and those close to Harry find different ways of coping. Eventually SSRW & HPLV; HGLM
1. Chapter 1

I'm working on Reforming the Unreformed, promise. In the meantime, I'll detract a little. I started to write, and this just came together. P.S. I don't own Harry Potter and any related material.

**Rating**: M for Mature

**Summary**: A chance attack in the summer before Harry's 5th year leaves him physically and mentally hurt and hospitalized. Six months have passed, and those close to Harry find different ways of coping. Many different pairings to start with and to come.

**Warnings**: This story may have content, such as self mutilation, cursing etc., that may offend some readers. If this is not for you, here's your chance to take a hike.

A/N: This isn't really meant to be angst, and it isn't really romance until later. Additionally, the format of this story is different. Don't like, don't read.

Chapter 1: First, came the pain.

0000

He'd forgotten how high he had held back the pain. He'd pushed it beyond, beyond reckoning like a spring and now it leaped toward him, eager to subdue its prisoner.

…

It made him remember…remember why he'd wanted to die, again.

He'd tried so many times…he'd forgotten count.

There had been that time in Sirius' bathtub. He'd cut deep and taken all the necessary steps. And no one had found him, and he'd bled out. And yet he still woke up, sticky with his blood and dried, dirty bathwater after what seemed to be days later. The gashes on his arms were scabbed over and lank red hair plastered his forehead.

Foggy sunlight was seeping through the dusty window above him. The room was just as he had left it: his second hand clothes were in a pile by the tub, and the razor gleamed near the edge of the filthy sink.

Yes, it was all the same.

0000

It never changed. Potter always stared up at the ceiling, staring at something only he could see. Anyone who was foolish enough to venture into the sick ward could feel and nearly hear the hum of the Golden Boy's magic. Magic that was contained, and had nowhere to run free. They'd made the mistake the first time…of touching him…when he first arrived, broken, bloody, and scarred with magic unknown. He'd unconsciously lashed out at the well meaning Healers and shoved them back and out. Though his magical energy wavered, it never paused, holding the beaten boy together at the seams.

Currently, it was like that one day, and the rest of the boy's life had never existed. Potter healed, but never woke, and the restrained magical power grew, day by day.

0000

"You've been here quite some time, my boy."

He was between both worlds. Living and dead. Limbo, apparently.

Magical energy anchored him to that powerless, misused and dreadful body.

His resurrection had failed.

When he'd drawn the blood, and made himself whole once again, thankful to even feel the white hot metal of the cauldron at his white, white fingertips, there was a deep seated joy in his heart. He was complete.

But then his most loyal curse failed him, rebounded a second time, and he was torn apart. Again.

Yet, there was no in between form this time. There was an in between world.

And he'd been so confident in his ability to kill the foe he'd marked at a year old.

0000

"I'm sorry, but have we met before?" asked the boy with fire filled emerald eyes with an upturn to lips. Heavy magic buzzed in the ears of the room's occupants like a hoard of nervous bees, intimidating.

The man with the twice broken nose, twinkling blue eyes, and ruby and mandarin robes smiled gently. He made no move to reach forward to establish a connection with his student in a gesture of comfort, lest he be killed.

"I'm afraid not. My name is Albus Dumbledore, my boy. It is nice to meet you."

Without his glasses, The-Boy-Who-Lived was near blind. But he didn't know this, and could only wonder why this silvery man was faded around the edges.

But wait, he did know. He knew-!

"Don't think I don't know what your plan is old man. I know-"

No, he'd never known. What had he been thinking about again? Well, never mind that. The morning sun cast such interesting shadows against the wall. It was almost as if it could be mist…and he knew someone with a mist form.

Did he? No. Never.

The boy was unaware he'd cut off abruptly and that a plum colored liquid was seeping like tears from the sides of his eyes. All he knew was that this old man insisted on staring at him.

"Pardon me, but is there any particular reason why you must stare at me so?" he asked, his magic on the verge of rising in threat. There was something _wrong _about this deceptively simple man.

0000

In the beginning he'd cried. It hurt. But, because he hurt, he wanted the hurt to go away; he wanted to make it any opening he could make it run out of.

So, he accepted the other pain, the sweet pain that made the other agony pale. It made him feel better every time, all the time.

With glee, he sent the edge of whatever sharp material that was on hand into himself, again and again. Every time it was a little deeper. Every time a little farther. It always was on his arms, always where no one would see.

Hermione knew, but wouldn't and couldn't tell. After all, she had her own secrets to keep. She hurt like Ron did, but differently at the same time. She managed it in another way, in a more acceptable way. It just had to be that pureblood's cock that made her feel better. And he hated it with a passion.

But then, it didn't matter much what he liked or disliked. What mattered was another day with bandaged arms and a pleasant excruciation that kept the other, throbbing agony at bay.

He didn't dare think about Harry. That always made things worse.

In their fourth year at Hogwarts, after that damned Triwizard Tournament where Diggory was murdered and sodomized, the Trio had awoken a magic that bound each one to the other. It linked them in ways that friendship could never. So, when Harry was…injured (other terms made Ron ill)…they'd felt the soul blinding, entrail expelling, brain bursting agony. For days, the torture went on into infinity, and it was all Ron could do to curl up into the darkest, smallest corner of the Burrow.

He couldn't escape it; it followed him possessively, almost as if it knew he would do anything to run away.

It was one of the early days, where he was still trying to distance himself from the pain that chained itself to his fourteen year old frame, and he was huddled in the back of his closet. The closet was the quietest. Here he could sob until his tears ran dry, and tear at his skin and hair and howl his pain to the darkness. And no one would hear. After all, the darkness didn't judge him for his red hair, freckles, or the abominable pain that seethed and twisted in every particle of his being.

He'd been gritting his teeth and making attempts to claw at his back where the agony seemed to have settled when he nicked his wrist on something crude and sharp in the depths of the closet. To his absolute astonishment, the pain lessened fractionally. In horror, Ron flicked on the closet light and saw a few small drops of blood welling innocently on the inside of his wrist.

Without thinking and too reckless to think about anything about making the pain _just go away_, he buried the offending top of the wire coat hanger with a violent stab into his forearm. He nearly shrieked in ecstasy when the pain grew fainter.

And so, the disabling, awful pain of the bond grew lighter with the new sweet, sweet pain of self-harm.

0000

As he moved in her, tears of relief of suffering abated slid down her flushed cheeks. He pushed his cock into her, deep into her being, making the hurt lessen a little bit more with each thrust forward. Muscled arms held her tightly as she made little whimpers of a different hurt. He was large, and sometimes he made her bleed, but this pain helped erase the agony of the bond with her companions.

Harry hurt her and Ron. Ron hurt himself because of what Harry provided to him and thus hurt Hermione. She returned the same to the boys accordingly. But it was Harry's torment that was immeasurable, something he unknowingly provided to his friends.

It had been months since that first dreadful stab of anguish that divided and multiplied like a virus.

At the start, she hadn't known what to do. The pain was staggering, like she was being drawn and quartered and then mutilated, but even to a point beyond that. She and Ron hadn't spoken since that day, the torment too high for either one to be close to other, or by any insanity, touch each other…

Though she wasn't sure of the exact date because the days meshed together, it was one day while she was blind and muddled with her personal burden of affliction. She was huddled in a darkened doorway of Knockturn Alley with her hair cropped short because the long hair threatened her nerve aware skin as an additional source of ache. The resonation of Dark magic in this area dulled the pain of the pure bond faintly enough that it mattered. And so, she wandered in this looked down upon part of wizarding society many hours of the day, seeking a place where the burn in her chest wouldn't be so _much_, where her pounding skull wouldn't beat so _terribly _so.

It was only when she was poked with the tip of an expensive, Italian styled shoe that she was alerted to persons being in her near vicinity.

A familiar voice was making disparaging remarks about her blood status. A deeper voice replied with something lower and more indistinct.

Unwillingly, she opened her eyes, feeling a dreadful sting against the dim light of the alley way. In confusion, she looked up, as only dark robes made up her immediate vision. She found herself looking up at Malfoy Senior and Junior. Draco was talking disdainfully about her. She could tell because she saw his lips form the words "Mudblood" more than once. She heard none of this however: there was a magical humming filling her ears. The pain always racked up to fearful heights when this sensation came upon her.

Pulling her eyes of Draco's cold face, Hermione turned her head slowly to the head of the Malfoy clan. His eyes were in the middle of a sweep of her dirty clothes, gray, exhausted face, and curly boyish crop when his cold gray eyes met her bloodshot ones. Something flickered in his dark impassive eyes then and he moved forward so quickly that Hermione puzzled over the blond hair in her vision. It was then that, with a delighted scream, the agony soared upward like an eagle in joyous rapture.

Suddenly there was tunnel of darkness and she was hurtling through it at a breakneck speed, her eternal torment with its fangs in her skull, feasting away on her sanity.

And just as suddenly, Hermione found herself on her knees, heaving the contents of her stomach onto the gravel beneath her hands. Garbled voices she may have recognized came to her slowly through the hum of magical energy still fogging up her ears.

The agony muted any other possible emotion able to pass into Hermione's consciousness. Thus, when there was an unexpected ease to the hurt, a number of different feelings sifted through the uplifted curtain.

Slowly, as if it cost her a great deal, the young witch opened her eyes. To her horror, the face of Lucius Malfoy loomed over her, still as a marble statue. It was then Hermione recognized that a gentle, comforting pain pervaded somewhere deep inside here. Long blond locks of the older man's hair hung down, nearly touching her face.

Hermione had the irrational urge to twist a lock of the hair around her finger. Alarmed at her lack of sensibility, she looked up into the Malfoy patriarch's eyes in apprehension. Impassive, the older wizard stared down at the young girl and then deliberately moved in her.

And then, she was lost.

0000

Draco did not understand his father. Neither did he understand what in the hell was going on with Granger.

Something happened last summer. Potter had not been seen since the start of term. There was some stupid rumor going around that he was mentally unhinged and was in some special ward at St. Mungo's. Well, if it happened to be true, it would be fitting. Draco had always known that Potter's scar had fucked up his head.

Meanwhile, the remaining two of the Golden Trio were both acting oddly, to make matters even more disturbing. For one, Granger was being fucked by his father, and if that wasn't enough said for that matter, he didn't know what was. The girl always had an absent, faraway look in her eyes nowadays, her eyes and ears tuned to something only she was aware of.

The Weasel was also behaving strangely. He ignored Draco whenever the Slytherin tried to get a rise out of him. He was quiet and made a point of being inconspicuous, something he had never done before.

It wasn't as if he could go and ask the two idiots what the fuck was going on anyhow. For one, he didn't care one ounce about their well being. Secondly, his father would kill him if he asked about Granger. Thirdly, he hated Ron Weasely.

He was so deep in his thoughts about the three people he disliked most in his life that he uncharacteristically ran into a tall, broad shouldered form in the hallway near the Owlery.

"Sorry about that," a young male voice said pleasantly.

Draco looked up, and once recognizing who he was dealing with, adopted a sneer. "Watch where you're going Longbottom!" he hissed sharply.

The tall Gryffindor looked down at the pale boy who was a few decent inches shorter than him absently.

"Oh. It's you," he said, his expression turning thoughtful, as if Draco was an interesting plant he'd like to examine and catalog.

"What is that supposed to mean, Longbottom?" Draco asked sharply.

"I know what's going on with you. You're not subtle at all. So stop staring at my friends and stop poking your nose around in matters that aren't any business of yours," the tall boy said quietly.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," the Slytherin said roughly, walking off toward the direction of his Common Room, more than ruffled at his year mate's words than he would admit.

0000

There was giggling in the back round. Maybe it was in his head. Maybe he was dead.

Then again, if he was dead, there wouldn't be giggling.

Maybe he'd cracked.

Harry opened his eyes for the first time in a long time of staring at the ceiling.

Something was pulling at the corners of his lips. He let it go, and found himself in the middle of a stupid, earsplitting grin. Oh he was on some serious medication alright. No doubt about that.

And yet the pain still writhed in delight in his body.

Obviously, the medication wasn't _that _good.

And it was like he thought. The giggling was in his mind. Oh joy.

Then he wasn't really awake. It was probably another fever dream. Because the shadows on the wall didn't have ruby red eyes, nor did hot pink unicorns with black sunglasses spontaneously appear at the foot of his bed.

Of course not.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to the people who reviewed! I enjoy the feedback.

Additionally, thanks to akuma-river for the thought provoking analysis.

**A/N:**

Yes, I know Hermione and Lucius, decidedly disturbing. However, it is intentionally for that purpose.

Additionally, the end of chapter 1 shows Harry is _not_ cracked. Just…sedated and confused by pain.

And finally, this story deals with **the effect** of Harry's disappearance and injury **upon those close to him**. Thus, there will extensive content involving Ron, Hermione and others along with appearances from the Potter boy. **Eventual** romance.

Not your cup of tea? Feel free to skedaddle.

Chapter 2: O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad.

0000

Another day. Another day, wanting to die, die, die.

But resigned to a fate that didn't want to just let him fucking _go_, Ron sighed deep into the safety of his pillow (It wasn't damp. That was good. He hadn't hacked up anything during the night as he had nights previous.)

Ron pushed himself upward, arms stinging, chest burning, his body struggling to wake up to increase the still mellow pain that he knew would be operating at full capacity by his first class of the day. The intangible bond with his friends drew them together by mutual understanding and friendship. It also pushed them apart simultaneously by pain, and unbearable personal hurt.

It wouldn't let him die. He'd found this out the hard way. Accidents that should have split open his head and spells that should have left the red head an incoherent, destroyed mess merely threw him unconscious or happened to magically stitch him back together again, good as new.

To make matters worse, no one could tell. His mother's eyes looked into his own without worry. For all appearances, he was a healthy growing boy. She didn't know. She wouldn't ever know. The bond shielded them from other eyes and healed his arms by morning.

So he had to inflict the same wounds again, every day, just so he wouldn't tear out his heart to end it all.

But then, the bond would probably just grow him another one, in spite.

It wouldn't let him die. And to prevent himself from going mad by thinking about what he was going to do, when there wasn't one thing he could do, he just cut again and again, to forget, as well as to make his torment ease, marginally.

On the urge of being depressed, which wasn't a good way to start a morning, Ron thought caustically, he bandaged his bleeding wrists automatically, savoring the sweet hurt.

0000

A large, warm hand was stroking Hermione's side, silky hair brushing against her cheek as lips breathed a kiss onto her forehead. Lucius was apparently in a good mood this morning.

"It is time for you to return to school, girl," he whispered in his deep voice, lips brushing her ear. A moment later he pressed a kiss into the side of her head.

Hermione opened her eyes and looked up into a set of cool, gray ones that were focused on her expressionlessly.

"Yes, I understand," she said quietly, voice hoarse from last night's screaming. He'd took her very roughly that time, with no forewarning.

She was obviously quite insane. She had to be when she'd been in a terrible state of ecstasy while he savagely fucked her, making her bond hurt go away.

He moved back while she made to sit up, finding grooved scratches down her chest and purplish bruises on her hips where he had gripped her hard. As she slid out of the bed, not looking at the older wizard she…she didn't know how she felt about him. She wanted to hate him, but she didn't. Yet, neither did she enjoy this arrangement. If it had been before…well, she never would have done this.

A nasty little voice in her mind said there was no way she could possibly know that.

Bending down to pick up her panties, Hermione felt something warm sliding down her inner thigh. Looking down, she saw blood. Casually, she wiped it off with the edge of the expensive sheet and pulled up her panties slowly, trying not to smile at the spectacular inner hurt of her womb. He'd gone particularly deep last night. She'd forgotten.

0000

Voldemort hovered in the in-between place restlessly, unable to keep still.

Something or someone was calling for him, inaudibly. It pulled at his non-form. But it was exactly as if one were trying to cup air in one's fingers. He wasn't corporeal. He couldn't be summoned when there was no essence to summon.

Like a whisper on the wind, it called to him again, maddeningly insistent.

0000

"How is he today?" the man with sad, desperate eyes asked.

The young Healer looked up from where she was smoothing down Harry's quilt. "Oh Mr. Black, I didn't hear you come in," she said pleasantly, tucking some of her auburn hair behind her ear. "He's doing much better than yesterday."

After Harry defeated the Dark Lord at the end of his own curse, again, he bound and Stunned Peter Pettigrew and forcefully took him back to Hogwarts. Sirius Black was free after a full confession, and then some.

And this is how he repaid his godson: he wasn't there to protect him when the boy needed him most.

He should have been left to the Dementors. He didn't deserve even the liberty of looking at the boy when he told James he would care for him. He was so useless.

The Healer was prattling on about meaningless things, like how Harry had gotten so pale, and how when he woke he would love to go out into the sun.

Stupid, foolish woman. Sirius knew it could never be that simple.

He'd overheard the Healer in charge talking to Dumbledore. He heard how Harry could probably never truly "wake up." The boy was frequently awake, but he was lucid and unclear about the people around him. He didn't know his godfather, and no one was allowed to touch him because his magic was confused, and he could kill without meaning to.

And so Sirius came to the same ward, every day, at precisely the same time, and sat beside his godson's bed, without hope but unwilling to abandon the boy who meant so goddamn much to him.

0000

Severus Snape was a very suspicious man. He had been a spy for too many years not to be.

With Potter in St. Mungo's, the remaining members of the Golden Trio, both equally infuriating rule breakers, were acting decidedly…odd.

Dumbledore had asked him to keep an eye on those hateful children, and that was the only reason he was making the observations he was.

For Granger, he expected the insufferable know it all to be researching methodically in Hogwarts' library for a solution to her friend's condition. She wouldn't rest until she found some obscure way to help Potter.

Instead, the girl was quiet, dreadfully so, in the hallways and in her classes. She was always alone with an empty face and a slowness to her step. Perhaps the children had a falling out beforehand. Or maybe, she was wallowing in grief over Potter's condition. Severus found that last probability highly unlikely. Unfortunately, she was a bright witch, and she knew better than to mope around when there was a possibility she could help.

Grudgingly, he admitted it would be a loss for the magical community if she were to commit some act of…thoughtlessness. Very, very grudgingly. He knew they signs. For the moment, they were not present. But her unusual behavior kept him wary.

However, Granger's personality changes were indeed questionable, her schoolwork remained excellent. Perhaps sometimes she didn't supplement her papers with extra information too much, or did not answer questions posed by his colleagues with the same fervor of days past. That wasn't life threatening, so Severus did not find himself terribly concerned with the girl who had hacked off her long, brown, curly hair over the summer.

Yet, the green, silver, and black bow she clipped in the short hair didn't help matters either, but Merlin help him, he didn't want to even _think_ about the implications of that, because he knew from experience what it meant, and it was absolutely unfathomable. It also was likely completely irrelevant to Granger's behavior quirks.

That is, he hoped it was.

Now, the Weasley boy…

If that boy thought he was fooling anyone, it was most definitely _not _Severus.

Ronald Weasley was obviously in the depths of a serious depression. If his so-called friends couldn't seem to gather that after five years of friendship, then they were the dunderheads he'd proclaimed them to be.

The boy never spoke to Granger anymore. He made no attempt to be close to her, in fact. Weasley sat as far away as could during classes he took with the witch, so the other professors claimed. In Severus' Potions class it was the same; Weasley partnered with Longbottom frequently.

The only reason he allowed the two the liberty of remaining together was because they hasn't yet killed anyone. They seemed to encourage each others strengths and diminish the other's weaknesses, much to his chagrin.

But there was something…something else. It was something Severus could still not put a name to, something that nagged at the edge of consciousness.

It was a reminder to why Weasley had become agreeable and why his temper had cooled considerably.

0000

"Ron, want to go down to the Lake for a bit?" Neville asked good naturedly.

No, he definitely did not. The pain was wheedling him up the threshold of inaudible tolerance. Soon, he would need to scream. He couldn't hack and slash at himself while his year mates were near, after all. But he could put up a Silencing spell and vent his anguish into the sheets where no one would hear.

"No thanks, Neville. I think I'm gonna nap till next class. I didn't sleep well last night," he said softly, blue eyes desperate for the tall boy to believe his slightly false words.

The pain had dragged him through dreams of massacre and blackness.

"Are you sure," Neville asked uncertainly.

Ron folded his arms behind his back, fingernails willing the skin to break open through the gauze so it would hurt, would it please hurt, so he could manage for a few more precious moments. And then he could free that other, dreadful, despised soul bond pain, by screaming, shrieking, tearing at his skin in futility, something, anything.

It hurt all the same, no matter what.

"Yes," he said shortly.

"Well, okay then. See you in Charms then Ron," the tall Gryffindor said, looking back once to see Ron's anguished grimace upturn into a half smile. He waved after Neville stiffly, biting his lip.

At least he tried.

The moment the door shut with a soft click, Ron threw himself into his four poster bed, snapped the hangings shut and rasped out the spell so no one could know what was happening to him. They couldn't know. He couldn't explain his situation to his mother, his brothers, to anyone: the bond bound them in more ways than one. And if they found him out, they would haul him off to St. Mungos and that's where Harry was.

He couldn't bear to see Harry. Not to mention that the agony would probably bolt him down dead unconscious until…until the end? He didn't know when Harry would recover. It could be never. And since Ron couldn't die, and he couldn't tell, he was damned well not going to spend the rest of his life in a bloody hospital.

…The abrupt movements made his wounded arms tingle suggestively with a delectable hurt. Then, the real torture reared its head and struck, over and over till the red head could not remember even his own name.


	3. Chapter 3

Once again, thanks for the reviews. I know it has been a bit…finals are coming up and all.

A/N: A bit more of Hermione this chapter…

Chapter 3: The devil take thy soul.

0000

On some days, Hermione found that parts of her old self remained. And that always surprised her. Sometimes, the pain would be horrible, but bearable, and she would return to her old ways. On those few, dwindling days she would find the coherency of mind to do more research on the bond that chained her friends and her together. There would be sparks of that old passion for knowledge within her and she held onto it desperately even though she knew it would be soon chased away by her captor, her personal agony.

It would return at opportune moments mostly, when she was in the middle of reaching for a book in the library that had prompted her inspiration to research to begin with. It made her crumple to her knees, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, on the verge of tears, silently begging the pain to go away, go away…

It made her stagger in the hallway on the way to class, her mind burning with questions she wanted to ask her instructors, and suddenly all rationale would desert her. All the simple, normal thoughts would be wiped away, and the pain would grin at her, and plunge its fingers into her heart and she returned to that primal state she'd found on that first night. She wanted to…to…

She was ashamed of her desire to die. It was the epiphany of weakness.

Hermione was aware of the time where she first came to regard the pain as bearable, as something she could live with. She knew intellectually that her pain threshold had increased after the months after the first arrow of agony pierced her head. But it was distinctly discouraging to even have such a mentality of acceptance. It was a good thing she had no thoughts of the future or matters would be even worse.

It was hard to concentrate in class, but idly, Hermione forced herself to return to her notes, fiddling with the silk bow in her curly hair. That was something she still couldn't be persuaded against by the pain.

0000

Since Mother died, the house had been so quiet, Draco mused unhappily. His mother brought a certain light into the gloomy, cold mansion.

Draco hated it here.

But there was one thing he disliked more than the Manor. It was that damned Mudblood who just happened to be over for the winter holidays. When she first stepped in the foyer a few days prior with his _father_ by her side, he'd wanted to hex her. He'd wanted to do plenty more besides hex her for that matter. One look from his father killed any thoughts Draco had of protesting her presence in their home, though.

It uncharacteristically made him desire to scream.

It was the Mudblood's presence. She was making the atmosphere in the entire Manor deteriorate.

…He'd come downstairs for something to eat, needing a walk to clear his head before he went mad in his rooms. When he entered the spotless kitchen, the girl had her back to him. She was taking little sips out of something she held in her hands, unaware of his presence in a pale blue, silk sleeveless nightgown. There were faint hand shaped bruises on her shoulders.

"Granger," Draco stated levelly.

The girl shifted after a moment, and then she seemed to decide to turn around to face Draco.

Draco tried to not look horrified. He really tried.

0000

Well, he tried to put his face impassively like his father. Hermione could give him credit for trying. But he would never be his father.

0000

Draco stared at the low scoop of the nightgown on clothing Granger's frame that revealed the curve of her shoulders and frail looking neck.

There were visible grooved scratches with dried trails of blood at the bottom of her neck. On her left shoulder there was a terrible looking still bloody, purplish bite mark with smaller bites around the area. As Draco's gaze traveled downwards, he saw red splatters on the lower part of the silk nightgown, and…there was a small river of blood trailing down the inside of one of her legs. It was pooling by her feet.

The place where the Mudblood turned in place was half a bloody footprint.

He meant to make a cutting remark about how the Mudblood was getting what she deserved. Instead, something entirely different formed on his lips.

"Why do you let him do this to you?"

Granger smiled…or it looked like she did. He saw one corner of her lips lift a little.

A few moments passed. As if she was deciding how to best phrase her next words, she said in a soft whisper, "You wouldn't…understand."

Those three stupid, stupid words were all that it took for his simmering frustration and anger to all at once boil over. How could she be so damned dense? Granger obviously could not see that his father was more than capable of worse. She didn't seem to understand what he was able _to _do and what he definitely _would_ do.

Overall, he was just angry. For her being in his house. For being without his mother. For being kept in the dark about everything single thing.

Too fast for his conscious thought to take in, he was in front of her and he took her solidly by her upper arms, intending to shake her, to get the message into her thick skull.

All at once, as Draco looked into Granger's eyes, he saw her pupils dilate and her eyes widen. Her mouth opened in an excruciating, absolute agony filled scream, rising higher and higher and it began to magically echo within the kitchen. Draco's hands dropped from her arms, and Granger began to back away, her magic rising in retaliation, her shrieks continuing, resonating into the whole of the mansion.

And then, the Manor's energy, its power, rose at the girl's fear.

Draco knew in that moment he was going to die.

0000

That awful, horrible boy had touched her. And he'd been filled with malice.

The slow roll of the pain all at once exploded as Malfoy's fingers and magic grasped her hypersensitive skin. In triumph, it rose in height, towering over her body, opening its maw full of terrifyingly glass sharp, needle pointed, diamond hard teeth. And then it took a great big bite into her head.

0000

A strong hand pushed Draco aside forcefully, magical energy slamming him back into a wall.

His father.

Pinned to the wall by power older, and far more powerful than his own, Draco watched as his father reached Granger, who continued to shriek at the top of her lungs.

In one fluid motion he embraced her, his lips forming words Draco could not follow, touching her all over quickly, his face partially hidden from view. Granger's screams lessened imperceptibly and his father Banished the girl's nightgown with a exasperated movement.

Confused and embarrassed, Draco turned his head away as best as he could because he was pinned to the wall. He could see from the corner of his eye that his father was undoing his robes.

No. Surely not.

0000

Hermione found herself leaning against an essence that was decidedly comfortable. A hand was stroking the back of her head smoothly, playing with her curls.

Lucius.

He was breathing slowly against her, his deep masculine scent teasing her into a false sense of relaxation when the pain lurked around the corner, wretched trickster it was. Hermione raised an arm to curl her fingers at the base of his neck, trying to shift closer to his body, feeling the threat of the agony a few steps behind her. She wished she could escape, somewhere, anywhere…

She found the skin on his neck slightly damp, like he'd been sweating, something he rarely, if ever, did.

"Child," he said quietly. He paused. "You are…well?"

Hermione sighed in defeat against the older man, entirely unaware of her surroundings. Resisting made it harder for the anguished waves to taper off at the end.

"I feel…good," she said finally, shifting closer against the Malfoy patriarch, wondering at the sensation of his bare skin against hers. It was definitely…fascinating. They had never touched bare skin to bare skin before.

She did feel good. For now.

Hermione wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and pretend it wasn't going to come, that the pain wasn't going to bash her across the head again when it had just nearly gone away.

The pain rose slowly in the distance, coiling in excitement. Hermione melted against her necessary lover and buried her face into his chest, hoping he wouldn't hold this move against her.

0000

He'd closed his eyes but, unfortunately, he was unable to shut his ears.

Draco never would be able to forget the insane and mentally distressing circumstances where his father took advantage of the Mudblood in front of him.

All the while he'd felt his father's power, trying to calm Granger and the Manor as the witch lashed out, destroying much of everything it took hold of.

The most terrible part of it all was that one, he knew every time his father...thrust…into the girl because it made both of their energies flare brightly and heavily. The second and equally tormenting fact was that each time he…went into her…Granger's screams got a little lower, until they were small whimpers. And when his father gave a hard, low exhale, Granger didn't make one single sound.


End file.
